Jane Eisner '77, P'06, '12: First Female Editor of The Wesleyan Argus
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For more than a decade, Jane Eisner was editor-in-chief of the Forward, the first woman to hold that position at America’s foremost national Jewish news organization. Online and in print, the Forward is the authoritative source of news, opinion, arts and culture in the Jewish world. Since Eisner joined the Forward in 2008, the publication has won numerous regional and national awards and her editorials have been repeatedly honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and other media groups. Prior to her work with the Forward, Eisner held executive editorial and news positions at the Philadelphia Inquirer for 25 years, including stints as editorial page editor, syndicated columnist, City Hall bureau chief and foreign correspondent. She served as vice president of the National Constitution Center from 2006 to 2008 and has taught at Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania. Eisner is currently a senior fellow at Penn’s Program for Research and Religion on Urban Civil Society and a member of the Common Ground for the Common Good project. She is also chair of the board of the Student Press Law Center and author of Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in our Democracy, published by Beacon Press. Eisner is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Columbia School of Journalism and was a fellow of the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College in its inaugural year. She lives in New York City with her husband, Dr. Mark Berger.